sage francis questionnaire:
when you were a kid growing up, what did you want to be when you grew
up?

"Either a ninja or a rapper."

now what do you want to be when you grow up?

"immortal"

what is your earliest memory of music?

"I remember singing the words 'Oh, baby...I looooooove youuuu' at the age of 4 or 5 thinking 'damn...this shit is so easy.' Then I got concerned about music in general and asked my mom if she thought we would run out of melodies and she laughed. My first tape was 'Walk on the Wild Side' by Lou Reed. My Step Dad got it for me."

do you think of yourself, these days, as musician?

"Yes, I do."

does what you do relate to poetry?

"Yes, it does"

is hip-hop urban, postmodernist poetry, or is it just maniacal
braggadocio?

"hiphop is an ever changing definition, but at it's core it is braggadocio and attitude."

doseone called slam poetry "poetry for football captains when they're
not playing football"; ursula rucker called it "a popularity contest in
which poems are written only to incite a reaction from an audience"; how
do you view poetry slams, and how do they relate to hip-hop/ciphers/etc?

"Dose has never been in a poetry slam. And I can assure you, even though I was the captain of my highschool football team, the majority of people in the slam team were the rejects in highschool. Judging from that comment, he doesn't know what's it's liek to be a captain of a football team nor in a poetry slam. Isn't it great when people make comments when they don't understand either side of the analogy. The same goes for Ursula Rucker. And they are probably both right. We all operate in formats that operate on the same exact platform though."

do you differentiate between a more personal kind of lyricism, for your
records, say, and the more familiar bragging/cutting-down/fanfaronade of
mc stage battling?

"Of course I do. One of them is on some 'wake the fuck up' type shit and the rest is on some fun shit."

how much of the content on your records is confessional, how much of it
is confession through the prism of poetic liscence, and how much is
outright fiction?

"It's all confessional. All of it."

what do you think of people assuming that everything you say on record,
or on stage, is some kind of great truth?

"They need to build their esteem. Because every action of their's is a truth of some sort. All I do is comment on it. The great truth is in our actions...and, yes, that includes me and what I say."

are you in any way concerned about letting specific details from your
life come up in songs that are almost, like, awkwardly truthful (like
specialist, say)?

"Am I concerened? No. I doubt most people can really decipher the specific details anything I say. All they can do is assume. I can't feel awkward about anything I present in a public forum."

on personal journals, then on the makeshift patriot single, there seemed
to be a real dialogue between your earnestness/eagerness and some kind
of creeping cynicism; like you had a growing self-awareness that some
kind of personal tiredness was seeping into how you felt about the
world. is this an accurate reading? are you aware of this (or thoughts
like this)?

"Yes, that is accurate. It has existed in me as long as I can remember. That's why hiphop appealed to me in the first place."

how self-aware and self-conscious are you about your music?

"In one sense...completely. In another...not at all. It's impossible for me to understand how this worls is percieving me or what I say. I like to think that I do though."

how profound an emotional/spiritual/artistic outlet or release is
hip-hop, to you?

"it is my main forum of expression. At this point, that is the most profound and emotional release I have become comfortable with. That's very important to me."

does it help you make sense of yourself? of the world?

"it helps if I think that's what I'm doing, yes. I wish I understood it all. I wake up wanting hating the idea of life sometimes. God and I need to have a long talk."

if/when you're asked to give the obligatory state-of-hip-hop overview,
are you a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of guy?

"I'm the 'what glass?' kind of guy."

are you hopeful or pessimistic about what lies in future for hip-hop?

"I am secretly hopeful for humanity in general."

what do you foresee in the future of pop music?

"Many, many unfortunate branches. I also see an eventual convergence of it all.

what do you hope for in the future of pop music?

"it will always be the same. Unchallenging for the most part...with moments of originality here and there."

what do you hope for in your musical future?

"I hope for peace and enlightenment. That's probably far fetched though...so in all reality I hope to continue making people question what they do. Maybe we can all make sense of it all. Maybe we can do this one night around a campfire than engulfs every captial city."

what do you hope for in your personal future?

"I hope for my family to know I love them dearly. I hope for everyone I love to live forever. I hope for people to develop and be comfortable with who they are. I hope for ignorance and irrationality to phase out. I wish for enlightenment and happiness for everyone. I hope to help myself and others in the process."

Wed Sep 18, 2002 3:59 am

maxamillion

Joined: 05 Sep 2002
Posts: 1040
Location: The Netherlands

You should write a book, or else start a new religion!

Or maybe you just need to stop and become a myth!

Nah, just stay who you are and keep making albums like your last one. Well not exactly like your last one, just as dope!